The fire had been trimmed before she slept, and now flamed up gayly; the window was dusky, as were the distant corners of the room, and Herbert was gazing steadfastly at her. “I fell asleep without knowing it. I am sorry! Have you wanted anything? How long have you been awake?” “Only a few minutes, my dearest!” with no change in the mesmeric intentness of his gaze. “I want nothing more than to have you always near me. You have been a good, faithful wife, Mabel, better and nobler--a thousandfold nobler than I deserved. I have thought it all over while you were sleeping so tranquilly in my sight. I wish my conscience were void of evil to all mankind as is yours. I awoke with an odd and awful impression upon my mind. The firelight flamed in a bright stream between your chair and me--and I must have dreamed it--or the chloroform had affected my head--I thought it was a river of light dividing us! You were a calm, white angel who had entered into rest--uncaring for and forgetful of me. I was lost, homeless, wandering forever and ever!” Had her prosaic spouse addressed her in a rhythmic improvisation, Mabel could not have been more astounded. “You are dreaming yet!” she said, kneeling by him and binding his temples with her cool, firm palms. “When we are divided, it will be by a dark--not a bright river.” “Until death do us part!” Herbert repeated, thoughtfully. “I wish I could hear you say, once, that you do not regret that clause of your marriage vow. I was not your heart's choice, you know, Mabel, however decided may have been the approval of your friends and of your judgment. The thought oppresses me as it did not in the first years of our wedded life.” “I am glad you have spoken of this,” began the wife. “I would disabuse your mind--” “All in the dark!” exclaimed Mrs. Aylett, at the door. “And what a stifling odor of chloroform!” Mabel got up, and drew a heavy travelling-shawl that covered Herbert's lower limbs over his arms and chest. “I will open the window!” she said, deprecatingly. A sluice of cold air rushed in, beating the blaze this way and that, puffing ashes from the hearth into the room, and eliciting from Mrs. Aylett what would have been a peevish interjection in another woman. “My dear sister! the remedy is worse than the offence. Chloroform is preferable to creosote, or whatever abominable element is the principal ingredient of smoke and cold! The thermometer must be down to the freezing-point!” Mabel lowered the sash. “You have been sitting in a room without fire, I suspect. The temperature here is delightful. I am sorry we have exiled you from such comfortable quarters.” “Don't speak of it! I cannot endure to sit here alone--or anywhere else. I have slept most of the afternoon. How the wind blows! I wish Winston were at home.” “It is a dark afternoon. He seldom returns from court so early as this. It is not six yet.” Mabel still essayed pacification of the other's ruffled mood.